


The Siberian Bear

by RegalMisfortune



Series: Gibraltar Shenanigans [8]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Didn't proofread IE like a fool, Jesse wants to live longer than five minutes, Junkrat talks a lot, Minor not-very important ocs, Siberia is cold and everyone hates it, Team Composition 10/10, This is what I did instead of writing chapters for other stories, Timely Saves Done By A Bear, Were-Creatures, Were-creature McCree, Were-creature Roadhog, Were-creature Zarya, tags are bad and i should feel bad, they're fillers, this story's a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 20:14:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11744370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RegalMisfortune/pseuds/RegalMisfortune
Summary: A mission seeking out an old Ecopoint in the wilds of Siberia leads to unexpected friends.





	The Siberian Bear

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this because the idea wouldn't leave me alone. I apologize in advance for any errors, mishaps, and confusions that happen in this. Take it as the mess that it is. Thank you.

Siberia was the definition of hell frozen over. Cold and isolated with miles upon miles of trees that muffled sound and made everything eerie as snow drifted silently from the conifer branches above. It was, perhaps, even worse than Antarctica in Jesse’s mind, where the flat expanse of ice and snow was a frigid parallel to that of the dry cracked earth and hot desert sand of Mexico and the South-West of the United States. There, it was flat, and you could hear and see everything for miles, easy to pick out friend from foe.

In the thick of the taiga during the infamous Russian winters, however, everything was muted aside from the crunching of snow, the sharp exhale of breath that clouded before him, and the chatter in his ear through the commlink that crackled from time to time with static.

Jesse wondered why in Sam Hill would Winston put the two new guys in on this mission. He had his fair share of cold weather, but throwing two Junkers from Australia into the middle of Siberia during the more-than-nippy season was cruel and unusual punishment. Especially since Jesse was now forced to listen to the scrawnier of the two complain in his ear about the cold, about the snow, about how it was too quiet, about wearing clothes- anything that came to mind first. Sometimes he didn’t even finish his first complaint, jumping from one sentence to another and then back to the first in a mind-boggling whirlwind of words.

His giant of a friend merely grunted from time to time, occasionally clamping a hand over Junkrat’s face to shut him up, but it never lasted long.

Jesse turned his eyes over to his own partner for the day, frowning softly at the shivering form of Mei. Again, he questioned Winston’s reasoning, but he knew that the gorilla had no other choice. The extended cryostaisis had caused the small scientist to constantly feel cold, only worsening when she was actually in icy weather. Usually her thick clothing kept her up and cheerful, but the bitter chill of Siberia was seeping in through even that. She was already wrapped up in Jesse’s serape in extension of her thick, faux-fur collared coat and other winter attire, the soft chatter of her teeth jarring to Jesse’s more sensitive ears.

But Mei was the only one who could do what needed to be done. There was an old Ecopoint somewhere within the wilds of this forest, but its exact location had been lost; only the general location remained from old data, and scanners failed to pick anything up as most of the facility was underground and the trees were especially useful in hiding things that didn’t want to be found. Mei knew what needed to be recovered, and she needed to get it before it got completely lost by nature. Or the omnics that crawled across the grasslands and through the forests to attack military outposts in the Siberian Front. Or the feral were-creatures that supposedly lurked within the trees.

…Actually, that may be why both Jesse and Roadhog were sent along on this mission. Jesse was known by the old and new populace as being some sort of cross between a werewolf and a were-coyote; a were-coywolf? A were-coydog? Eh, he wasn’t one to hang on specifics, but he was a bonified mutt nevertheless- even in the werecreature community- and while it may have given him shit in the past, Jesse had come to terms with it, a simple part of his character.

Roadhog was a were-boar- almost entirely feral both in human form and not. That may be in part because of his living in the wastelands of Australia, or maybe from his bred-born personality. Either way, he was a bit of a secret still, only outed because Jesse could sniff him out for miles and Roadhog had almost crushed his skull into the nearest wall when they first met. Winston and Angela knew as well- Winston being a genetically modified gorilla could pick out the animalistic side of people as well, and the fact that he needed to know being their commander and all, and Angela had to because of medical reasons, although she was under oath not to utter a word of it.

He wasn’t sure if Junkrat knew. Perhaps he did, perhaps he didn’t. It was hard to get a read on the man who rambled about everything and anything in a haphazard, headache-inducing way and always smelled like gunpowder and smoke, and Jesse wasn’t keen on asking him directly. Wasn’t ready to get his skull bashed in anytime soon again either. Just thinking about it made his head hurt.

The only reason Junkrat was even on this mission was because of Roadhog- it was far too early to split the duo up, Jesse figured was Winston’s thought process-  and so they had to work around the pair in making the rest of the team to find the lost Ecopoint.

“Anything yet?” Jesse asked, putting a finger to his ear as he cut through Junkrat’s complaint about tripping over a stick hidden in the snow for the fourth time that hour.

 _“Nothing yet,_ ” came the quiet murmur from Angela- Mercy on the field, he told himself. “ _Just snow and trees.”_

“ _It will be dark soon,”_ Symmetra’s clipped voice sounded in his ear next, the ex-Vishkar architect alongside Mercy. “ _We should meet back up at the drop point._ ”

“ _And trudge all the way back through the snow?!”_ Junkrat whined, obviously not pleased with the prospect of having to back track, but whatever complaint he wanted to say next was muffled- most likely by Roadhog.

“ _Something’s up,_ ” was all the large man said, perhaps the longest sentence he had said since joining a mere week ago just after Symmetra, and the line went quiet. Jesse too perked his ears to listen to the quiet forest, stopping in his tracks at the same time Mei did. He was certain everyone else had done so as well, listening with baited breaths. 

Peacekeeper was already out of its holster and turned to his left, a shot ringing out into the shadows of the trees. A metallic thump hitting snow followed, proceeded by the cracking of gunfire by omnic guns.

Jesse took a hold of Mei’s coat and dragged her down into the snow, taking shelter behind the thick bark of a fallen pine. The scientist was struggling for her own weapon, her fingers trembling too much to be of any use.

Jesse fired blindly over the tree, the sound of sparking electrics being the only confirmation that he hit something. The commlink had fallen into static, no doubt a scrambler had been placed down to block any frequencies, leaving the separated teams without communications.

Mei managed to get her bearings long enough to throw up an ice wall, bullets skimming over the top and disappearing into the trees as it rose above them, blocking omnic fire as they circled around to get to them. It wouldn’t last for long, as the tell-tale sign of ice cracking prickled in his ears around the sound of guns and whistling of bullets.

He stuck his head out long enough to pan-hammer into the trees, ducking down once again to reload. He had half a thought of shifting, perhaps just run faster away with Mei, but shifting would take far too long and the ice wall was already sporting visible fissures in its surface, Mei’s face especially pale as she aimed her weapon towards the crumbling wall, ready to fire at the ones that were on the other side.

The trees made it hard to shoot, made it hard to find the enemy. The omnics had a clear advantage, and both he and Mei were sitting ducks ready to be shot down. The gun in his hands clicked as he put the final bullet in, and was just about to stick his head out again to fire when the wall broke down.

Well, broke down because a hulking metal form of an omnic came sailing over the fallen tree, smashing through the ice and twisting into scrap as it tumbled across the forest floor. The wood above them creaked something dangerous as something even larger came barreling over the trunk, massive claws just barely missing Jesse’s and Mei’s heads as the largest bear he had ever seen charged over them with a bellowing roar, the fallen omnic getting its head crushed in like a crumbled soft drink can as the creature stomped on it as it went tearing after the remaining omnics.

Jesse knew an opportunity when he saw one, taking hold of Mei’s hand with his free one, Peacekeeper still in the other as they ran into the darkening shadows of the trees, passing by mangled and shot-up omnics as they stumbled through the snow.

The trees had grown silent once again, no more gunfire or grinding metal of approaching omnics. Nothing but snow drifted down upon them as they stopped for breath, Mei shaking like a leaf under Jesse’s serape and holding his prosthetic hand for dear life. Mei wasn’t a fighter nor a soldier. She was a scientist, only doing what she could to help. She wasn’t made to fight omnics, or be in the heat of battle, although she did her best despite the cold most likely digging up some horrid memories for her.

He did his best to give her a gentle squeeze for comfort, but he himself was on edge, eyes narrowing on every shadow and flicker of movement.

The barrel of Peacekeeper fell upon a large shadow that shifted, something large crunching through the snow, only pausing once it moved out of the shadows.

It was the bear from before, rising to its hind legs to tower over them. Its fur was a pale brown, although in the shadows it looked darker. Its limbs were different than that of a normal bear, longer, standing more like a humanoid than an actual bear. It stared at them with eyes far too green to belong to any bear either, and Jesse knew from the prickling on the back of his neck and his gut telling him to back off that this was definitely a were-creature, one that could most likely crush him like a bug if it wanted to.

Jesse subtly pushed Mei behind him, aiming Peacekeeper right between the creature’s eyes.

“Hey now, no need to cause any trouble,” he told the creature, hoping- praying- that it wasn’t mindlessly feral. “We just want to be on our way all peaceful-like.”

The bear’s lips lifted, nose wrinkling slightly as it gave the impression of some sort of sneer or glare- except that it gave out a snort that almost made it mockingly amused. It dropped back down onto all fours, taking a steady, fearless step closer as it stared Jesse down with unblinking, startling green.

It had a cross-shaped scar down over its one eye, Jesse noticed suddenly. The fur on its head was also a different shade, almost reddish in the darkness of nightfall. Still, he continued to stare back, trying to hide his unnerve as the were-bear returned the gesture.

It let out of a huff, almost akin to a breath of laughter if it had been human, turning away as if to walk off, but stopping only to tilt its head back to them and gestured with it towards the trees it had come from.

“It… it wants us to follow, I think,” Mei whispered softly, which got her a short bob of the bear’s head.

“…Right… this better not end off the edge of a cliff, y’hear?” Jesse told the bear, which simply let out another humored snort before it began to plod through the snow. Although the creature showed no aggression to them, and even helped them, he wasn’t keen on trusting an unknown were. Not that he had any other choice, and Mei was shaking up a storm as the temperature dropped with the setting sun and darkening clouds, leaving him with no other choice but to hope that the bear was going to lead them to some sort of shelter.

Jesse kept Peacekeeper in hand, just in case.

The trees closed in around them as night settled, Mei huddling close to Jesse. Even he couldn’t ignore the cold any longer the damp bite seeping into his bones and through the connection where his prosthetic met flesh. The bear ahead of them had slowed down, aware that they were staggering along before it stopped completely, turning sideways towards them. It watched them for a moment before gesturing with its head again, this time towards its own shoulders as it settled down into the snow and waited, watching expectantly.

“Come on, short-stuff,” Jesse murmured, holstering Peacekeeper only so he could hook his hands under Mei’s arms, hefting her up and over the bear’s back.

“Oh!” she breathed out, taking a moment to regain her bearings before her gloved fingers threated through the thick fur. “You’re really warm!”

The bear huffed, amused, as Jesse slid up behind Mei and the bear rose to its feet once again. The creature _was_ really warm- the heat already soaking in through his insulated clothing. He felt entirely awkward riding a _were-bear_ around like some estranged pony, but shifting took too long for him and he was sure his paws would get frostbitten before he got anywhere far with the temperature dropping a degree a minute.

They continued on for almost ten more minutes before they emerged from the thicket, a familiar shape of a bunker entrance peeking out from under dead vines and branches. A voice in Russian called out from the top of the entrance, Peacekeeper already halfway out of his hostler before he caught himself. Two men dressed in military regalia dropped down from the roof, the scent of animal on them as they saluted the bear, saying something more before opening the door with a metallic groan and a waft of warm air.

The bear knelt back down again, and Mei didn’t need prompting from Jesse as she slid from the creature’s back, giving it a bright smile and a pat with verbal gratitude that caused one of the men to choke on a laugh. The bear simply watched her go, before swiveling a critical eye on Jesse, who lifted his hands up in a peaceful gesture.

“Peace. No trouble from me,” he told it, sliding from its back to hurry after the small scientist who had already darted down the steps into the bunker.

“Jesse!”

As soon as he stepped into the main entrance at the bottom of the steps, he was wrapped up in the warm embrace of Angela before she began fretting over him for injures.

“I’m fine. Not even a scratch,” he soothed her, but Angela wasn’t one to give up her healing duty of worrying so soon after switching from Mei to himself.

“It was chaotic!” she languished, her German accent lacing her words to give away her internal worry as well. “Communications went down and then omnics came out of nowhere! If it hadn’t been for these kind soldiers…”

Jesse took the moment in her story telling to look around. Symmetra sat nearby in her hard light chair, prim and proper despite her winter coat off and shoulder wrapped in gauze, seeming to explain something to an unknown man as she swirled the light between her fingers. Junkrat was sitting on the floor, arms crossed and grumbling, a few more smudges of soot on his nose and his leg looking a bit more crooked than usual, but otherwise unharmed. Roadhog stood beside him, rigid as hardened steel, his masked face pointed directly at a pair of soldiers who were built more like boulders than people, staring back down at the large Junker with unhidden distrust.

Angela herself had a few scratches across her cheek from branches, but she hadn’t seemed to notice, too busy taking care of everyone else.

The air was thick with different animal and human scents, mixing and mingling together to where it was giving Jesse a headache. It was no wonder that Roadhog was so tense as well. It was as if they just found themselves in the middle of a nest of hornets, a territory of several dozen different kinds of were-creatures, and one wrong move from outsiders like themselves would get them all mauled.

Footsteps on the metal stairs behind him made Mercy fall silent, the door above shutting with an ominous grind. Bare feet appeared first, followed by thick legs and rather short shorts and abdominals that would make even Reinhardt swoon. They were covered up by a sleeveless shirt that was finally pulled over the person’s head, tugged down by nails painted hot pink as the largest, muscular woman Jesse had ever seen stepped into the light, shaking her dyed hair like a dog for a second before sweeping it out from her face with her fingers.

The sharp green eyes stared into Jesse’s very soul for the brief second before it went sweeping around the room, and Jesse had the itching feeling that he knew her from somewhere before. But where?

“Hello,” the woman said suddenly, surprisingly in thickly-accented English rather than Russian. “Well, I would like to say we were expecting you, but we were not.” Her eyes flitted about the room again, her lips quirking upward slightly as they settled on the two Junkers. “Although, I suppose we should’ve smelled you for kilometers around. Our mistake.”

“Oi! We don’t stink!” Junkrat yelled, ready to pitch a fit until one of Roadhog’s meaty hands dropped to his head and squeezed his skull a little to shut him up, still staring the two Russian soldiers down. Jesse couldn’t help but wince.

“Thank you for assisting us,” Angela, bless her heart, stepped in before anything else could be said. “We would have been in a very precarious situation if you haven’t.”

The woman merely shrugged, large shoulders rising and falling with nonchalance as her feet hit the metal floor after completing the trek down the stairs.

“Simply doing our duty,” she replied. “Although you were foolish to walk into the forest during winter without being prepared. What are you here for anyway?” She looked ready to say something else, her eyes flitting from Roadhog to Jesse with a piercing, narrow look before fixating back onto Angela, perhaps deciding it wasn’t the time to ask about why they had decided to bring were-creatures into the mix as well.

“We were looking for Ecopoint: Kolyma.”

Attention was turned to Mei, who flushed slightly, burying the lower half of her face deeper into the confines of her scarf. “There’s something there that we need to get, and, well, we lost all but the general location of it…”

The woman stared down at Mei long enough to make the poor scientist squirm before she threw her head back and let out a rumbling laugh.

“Well then! No wonder some of you look familiar!” She dropped her head back down, eyes glittering and teeth sharper than natural on any human, as she grinned at them, gutting a finger and then thumb at Mei and Angela. “You are old Overwatch, yes? Then the rumors are true, you are reforming.”

“What am I, chopped liver?” Jesse couldn’t help but mutter, earning a sharp elbow to his ribs from Angela. The pink-haired Russian pretended not to hear as she simply spread her arms out wide.

“I will make your trip worthwhile. Welcome to Ecopoint: Kolyma! Or “the bunker full of beasts”, as the other divisions like to call us. I’m sure whatever you need may still be in here. Come! Let us search! Oh, and Viktor, Anton, please take your pissing contest with the boar outside. There’s enough bloodstains on the floor, no need for more.”

The two boulders that were men shuffled their weight around, looking quite scolded as they moved out of the way for the woman to open the next door to wave them deeper into the underground facility. It was then, that it dawned on Jesse, as the woman smiled and spoke with Mei who was more than happy to trot beside the much larger woman and describe what they were looking for, why the Russian looked so darned familiar.

Well, at least he can now tell Hana where her favorite weightlifter Aleksandra Zaryanova ran off to after bailing out of the world championships the very eve of the event and hadn’t been seen nor heard from since joining the military.

Maybe he could sneak in an autograph before they left, just so he could escape the angry shoulder-punches from Hana for not getting one once the news gets out.

Still, he was curious. Russia didn’t have good thoughts for omnics or were-creatures. They were both worth more dead in their eyes. Why, then, was there an entire division of the latter on the near frontlines of omnic advancements? Any why was a woman who had been tested and cleared of being a creature prior to every single competition, was now one the biggest weres he had ever seen?

...Perhaps that was something for another time. For now, he decided to trail after them, the Junkers remaining firm in the entrance while the others went along to follow the massive Russian weightlifter-turned-werebear. The answers to his questions would come in time, he was sure.

 


End file.
